I look at my phone, scroll through Instagram, and see a new story. Who posted it doesn't really matter. The story shows a beautiful sandy beach, the bluest ocean you've ever seen, and all sorts of other things.
Next story. Someone just signed a new contract in New York. Top company, top salary.
On YouTube, someone explains how to optimize my morning routine, just so I can feel 80% tired instead of 90%.
And some wannabe wants to convince me that I'm wasting my twenties if I'm not already a millionaire. And of course he wants me to join his group.
Even when it comes to appearance, it no longer seems to be about feeling comfortable with yourself, but about getting the absolute maximum out of your genetic potential.
But when did living an "ordinary" life become something some people feel ashamed of?
Looksmaxxing
It's been a while since the term first started making its way around the internet. Looksmaxxing refers to practices aimed at improving your physical appearance as much as possible. These range from ordinary skincare routines to extreme and potentially dangerous procedures.
In certain communities, people are categorized using attractiveness scales and terms like "sub-5" or "Chad."
A study published in 2025 analyzed more than 8,000 comments from a looksmaxxing community. Among other things, the researchers observed how users evaluated other men's physical features and sometimes recommended drastic changes.
What I find particularly interesting is this: When other people start breaking down your appearance into individual features and ratings, at what point do you start looking at yourself the same way?
Maybe a face you were perfectly happy with eventually becomes a collection of things you want to improve.
What starts with skincare can turn your jawline, hairline, or height into the next problem. Later, maybe you don't like your teeth, your ears, or even your fingers anymore. But is there ever a natural endpoint if the goal isn't satisfaction, but maximization?
And then there's the fact that not every physical feature can be changed. Sure, technology has come a long way, and you can probably have almost your entire face altered these days. But it can still create the impression that people are entirely responsible for their appearance. What does that do to someone?
Ultimately, there's nothing wrong with wanting to look better. Exercise, skincare, and clothing can all be expressions of personal choice. But there's a difference between wanting to look better and believing you're not good enough until you do.
Looksmaxxing is just one particularly visible example of a much bigger phenomenon.
The optimization of everything
Almost every aspect of life can eventually turn into a competition. Let's say you go to the gym, but instead of being happy about your progress, you compare yourself to someone who lifts twice as much weight.
You develop software because you enjoy it. Then you look around and see someone your age who has already founded a successful company.
And just like that, your original motivation suddenly doesn't feel like enough anymore.
Another example: You enjoy photography. You love capturing beautiful moments with your camera. At some point, you get the idea of creating an Instagram account. You want other people to see your photos, too. Eventually, you start wanting more reach, and maybe you could even make some money from it. Suddenly, your hobby has become another project with goals and performance metrics.
Ambition, routines, and challenging goals can be useful, sure, and they can also bring a lot of joy. But do these goals actually come from your own decisions or from the feeling that you need to keep up with everyone else?
Maybe we should occasionally ask ourselves whether we're still doing something for the same reasons we started doing it in the first place.
Social Media
Let's go back to the example from the beginning. Let's say you see a story from someone you used to know. She's relaxing on a beach, enjoying her life. You know it's already her fifth vacation this year. You start wondering: How can she afford that? How does she manage to do all of this? Why am I not there yet?
You know your own everyday life better than anyone else, including all the boring, unsuccessful and completely ordinary moments. But from her, you only see a few pictures she selected out of thousands. Her display cabinet or something like that. You're comparing your entire reality with a carefully (probably took more than 1 hour) selected glimpse into someone else's life.
And once your social media feed mainly consists of successful founders, people with perfectly trained bodies, and extraordinary lifestyles, these examples can start to feel like the norm. Just because you see something frequently doesn't mean it's statistically common. Just because you see twenty successful entrepreneurs every day doesn't mean the average person your age is an entrepreneur.
Now, I don't want to portray social media as some kind of devil here. Social media can also inspire us, open up new perspectives and give people access to information they might otherwise never have encountered. The problem isn't the existence of successful people, but the distortion of our expectations.
When I ask myself whether I've ever compared myself to someone whose achievements I couldn't have cared less about before seeing them online, quite a few examples come to mind. And I find it hard to imagine that I'm the only one who's experienced this.
The paradox of the average
If everyone is supposed to be exceptionally successful, we run into a logical problem. Being exceptional is relative, after all. If everyone achieves the same extraordinary things, those achievements eventually stop being extraordinary.
That doesn't mean we can't all improve, of course. A society can become wealthier, healthier, or better educated overall.
But we can't all be exceptional compared to one another.
And yet, that's sometimes exactly what we're being told. As if living a good life isn't enough as long as someone else is living an even better one.
This is something I've noticed quite often, both on social media and in real life. Having an ordinary job, earning an average salary, and living a relatively uneventful life doesn't mean you've failed. And yet, I've seen people make fun of exactly those kinds of lives more than enough times.
Who even decides which criteria we should use to measure success?
After all, someone can be average in terms of professional success and still be extraordinarily satisfied with their life.
Now, I'm not trying to argue against extraordinary achievements in general. Without people striving for exceptional things, many scientific, technological, and societal breakthroughs probably wouldn't have happened.
But when everyone is expected to be exceptional, being exceptional stops being an achievement and starts becoming a requirement.
What does it do to us?
I think one of the biggest problems with all this self-optimization is that satisfaction eventually becomes something we feel we have to earn.
Satisfaction is constantly pushed further into the future. Once you get promoted, you'll be satisfied. Once you have your summer body, you'll be satisfied. Once you earn more money, you'll be satisfied. But what happens when you actually reach those goals?
Maybe you're happy for a few days. Maybe even longer. But eventually, you see someone who's already reached the next level in their career, looks even better, or earns even more money.
And suddenly, the thing you've been working toward this whole time doesn't feel like enough anymore.
I wonder whether this makes us constantly push satisfaction further into the future. It almost feels like a reward we're only allowed to receive once we've reached a certain level. But who even decides what that level is?
Another point I find even more problematic is the connection between achievement and self-worth.
Are you worth less because you earn less than someone else? Because you're not as attractive? Because you haven't founded your own company?
You'd probably reject these questions immediately if they were about another person. But why do we sometimes find it so difficult to apply the same reasoning to ourselves?
In psychology, there's a distinction between striving for high standards and perfectionistic concerns. A meta-analysis of 416 studies involving more than 113,000 participants found that perfectionistic concerns, in particular, were more strongly associated with anxiety and depressive symptoms than simply striving for high standards.
The study shows an association, but it doesn't prove that perfectionism necessarily causes these symptoms.
Still, I find the distinction interesting. Because it's not just about wanting to achieve a lot. It's also about how we treat ourselves when we fail to meet our own expectations.
If you increasingly measure your worth by how much you achieve, every setback can become something personal. A rejected job application is no longer just a rejected job application. Suddenly, it can feel like proof that you're not good enough.
But shouldn't your achievements simply describe what you've accomplished? Not what you're worth as a person.
Average is not the problem
The next time I open Instagram and see someone lying on a beautiful beach or celebrating their new dream job, I can obviously be happy for them.
But does that mean I have to feel like something is missing from my own life? I don't think being average is the problem. Maybe we've gotten used to seeing being average as something we need to overcome.
I think we should still pursue goals, improve ourselves, and strive to achieve extraordinary things. But because we actually want to. Not because we believe our lives aren't good enough otherwise.
There's nothing wrong with wanting an ordinary life. And to be honest, that shouldn't be something we have to justify.